The concept amuses me, but I feel is undermined by the inclusion of Lifedrinker and Nightblade to tip the balance in your favour. In my opinion, replace with more targeted damage effects like, say, Mad(der) Bomb(er) - it's not Russian Roulette if you're aiming at your opponent half the time. And also change the tag to 'just for fun', since it's not like you're going to be trying to make a ladder climb with a random-targeting 'wock deck.
So... it's Maly Druid but lower damage output, can't hit through taunts and needs a Florist proc? :P
Incidentally, Crystal Power is really not good in Quest Druid (of any flavour). The two options are mutually incompatible, meaning AT BEST it's going to act like you didn't have your quest completed at all, and at worst it's going to be significantly worse than playing it without the quest completed. You're better off including Worthy Expedition to smooth out your curve and fish for the far more effective cards like Nourish, Surger or Loti.
I took some pleasure from this article in remembering old archetypes I'd forgotten. Tempo warrior was barely a thing, it was viable for maybe one expansion, but it was pretty fun while it lasted... And looking over the decklist took me back to those halcyon days when dropping a 3/5 on 3 was the most powerful turn 3 play in the game. It's still pretty damn good, I suppose, but only by Standard's standards (heh). Also had fun in the early days of Wild's release messing around with an endless swarm type of paladin, running Justicar, Murloc Knights, Recruit-buffing cards like Steward of Darkshire, plus some Mukla's.
Incidentally, rather than improving it, I would argue Anyfin was the card that killed Murloc Knight. Before it was a lynchpin of murloc Paladin; as soon as Anyfin was released, Paladin had access to an easy OTK by including only 2x Bluegill, 2x Warleader and 1x Murk-Eye. Adding any other murloc made Anyfin actively worse, so what little play the Knight had been seeing dried up.
Kinda confused why all the non-legendary decks are virtually highlander despite (obviously) not having access to highlander support. Reno & co are the only reason you would ever do that - otherwise you're just making your deck massively unreliable for no payoff. Given the decks are already severely restricted by rarity, making them less reliable is unwise.
I remember playing against that deck (though not against Longer) on the ladder in Jan 19 (I went for the top 100 for the Wild Open, came close but didn't quite make it). I was never a fan; always been sceptical of Windfury in Even Shaman lists vs even more bodies, and Whirliboy Zapman just feels too easy to remove with pretty much anything. Admittedly that view may be coloured by me playing so much Warlock at the time.
Personally, I feel like with the spot Mage is in right now metagame-wise, highlander Mage simply isn't in a good spot. Going highlander is inevitably going to reduce your consistency in doing what your deck is aiming to do, and if your goal is to beat quest decks like Druid and Shaman, you need to be consistent. Druid will always have major board control after turn 5-6, Shaman will always outvalue you in a Mage list if you go long. Note that when I say 'always', I don't mean literally - I mean that it's so often the case that you should be planning for it when building your deck.
In my opinion, if you're going to target those decks, you need to be moving away from highlander and moving towards a game plan which those decks can't deal with. Mountain giants plus conjurer's calling is a good way of doing so, since neither deck is overly good at dealing with large threats (although you'd have to be careful of MCT, which Shaman usually runs and a lot of Druids have been experimenting with lately). Both decks pack healing, so you're not going to win from pure face plan - you're going to need to get the board, and to do so in a way that they can't get back with a one-turn clear.
Past that, you're going to need reach to close the game. Sure, Zephrys can grab you a fireball - that's not going to be enough against either of these decks the majority of the time.
In my view, if you want to target these decks, you go for something closer to the Big Spell Mage that's been popping up occasionally - double Pyroblast maindecked, discounted with Naga Sand Witch to give you a 20 damage burst turn. That's your win condition. Then build backwards from there, basically building your deck to be half ways of generating tall boardstates (since wide ones are easily punished by both decks), and half defensive AoE. Giants/Calling, Phaoris, that kind of thing. Keep Alex, drop the dragon package (especially Brightwing!), and have a good hard think about Luna's Pocket Galaxy (there's a reason it was basically unplayed before it got buffed).
Separate to all of that, if you really insist on going highlander, I would at least swap a few cards out. Drop Ice Barrier for something that's going to have a more significant impact, like Counterspell (which is a fantastic anti-druid card, by the way, dropped on turn 4/5 to block a starfall turn). Drop Blast Wave (horribly inefficient) for a Frost Nova to make Doomsayer less of a dead draw in the midgame. Drop Brightwing (ugh) and Crowd Roaster (very vulnerable to all of the removal in both Shaman and Druid) to get some board presence from Power of Creation, plus Conjurer's Calling. Think about dropping Firetree Witchdoctor (due to dropping some dragons) for Khadgar to synergise with the aforementioned. Ysera is also pretty debatable given she won't come into play until the point when both Druid and Shaman will be overpowering you anyway.
I think RavenSunHS is correct below, but to really drill down to it, you can answer the question posed by the article pretty simply:
Because it doesn't need to be.
Keywords exist as a visual shorthand, and as a learning aide for new players. Blizzard is resistant to adding new keywords, and they should be resistant to it, because the more keywords there are the less either of those objectives is easily met. Enrage was removed as a keyword because there were so few enrage minions, yes - but more to the point, because a keyword that isn't covering a lot of cards isn't doing its job.
I think long-standing HS players will (I would guess) generally like to see this mechanic be given a keyword, be it Elusive or anything else. The reason, I would argue, is simply because it feels neat. It's a mechanic which has existed since the game's release, and which is seen on a card here or there throughout most expansions. To anyone who's played all that time, seen it come up again and again, it simply feels right to give it a shorthand.
But whether it feels right is a separate question to whether it is right. Making the effect a keyword simply wouldn't give any real benefit to the game - there aren't enough cards with the effect to justify it - and would just be a mental bandage for long-standing players. Not coincidentally, those long-standing players are also the ones who get the least real benefit from keywords.
So, in summary, I don't believe the mechanic should be given a keyword.
As a side note - if it were given a keyword, would Elusive be a good fit? Personally, I feel like there's better ones out there. Elusive simply doesn't feel like it's descriptive enough of the effect itself. Sure, the article cites Taunt as an example of a similarly unintuitive effect, but I feel like this is a little disingenuous - Taunt is what it is because it was implemented in Vanilla when Hearthstone placed a much greater focus on callbacks to WoW. Not only has the game moved on since then, but the development team has learned a lot of lessons in designing a smooth and easily picked-up card game. They know better now.
Was this deck intended to compete seriously, or is it more of a 'for fun, and might win some games' deck? In my view it's suboptimal from the conceptual level and up, but obviously if it's more for fun than tryhard then that's irrelevant.
-1 Body Wrapper. Not really sure what it's doing there, as it's unlikely to give you anything useful.
-1 Antique Healbot. I get that it's there to try to stay alive, but there are better options for that - and the battlecry isn't adding anything to the 'wock, since Reno is already in there.
-1 Leatherclad Hogrider. You're already (hopefully) getting charge from the Spiked Hogrider, so this effect is redundant coverage - and it's also going to experience anti-synergy due to Unseen Saboteur's effect pulling a card from your opponent's hand.
-1 Flame Juggler. Just kind of underwhelming, in my opinion.
Replaced by three of the following:
+1 Witchwood Piper. You're light on card draw, but you need specific draw effects to avoid the 'wock overdrawing you. This one works nicely.
+1 Kalimos, Primal Lord. It'd take some manipulation, admittedly, saving either Sandstorm Elemental (overloading), Zephrys or Kalimos himself for the turn before the Shudderwock. Three of the four effects are beneficial if chosen randomly, however, and also fairly amusing. Sure, there's a failure rate built in, since if the 'wock's effect picks Earth Elementals and it happens before Dopplegangster then you'd miss the bounce... but it's worth it for the laughs, in my opinion.
+1 Nefarian. If nothing else, because you're including The Curator with no dragon for it to draw.
+1 Heroic Innkeeper. Depends on the timing that it activates, of course, but if it times itself correctly it'll pump you up.
+1 Doomcaller. Since you'll hopefully be bouncing the 'wock back to your hand, including Doomcaller will add a C'thun to your deck that you can draw and play on the following turn. Then your bounced 'wock has TWO C'thuns in it - and both are at 8 damage instead of 6. And you can repeat it!
+1 Siamat. Most of the time, not very good. But is it worth including it for the one time in a hundred that you nail the Charge off Spiked Hogrider and roll it into Windfury from Siamat?
+1 Seaforium Bomber. Assuming you're waiting until late before you play the Shudderwock anyway, this is probably just strictly better than Lifedrinker - you don't need the heal if you're playing Reno, after all.
- You could also include the Jade package, if you decided to give up on bouncing the Wock.
Also, +1 Deathwing. Is actually terrible, but on the other hand, SWAG.
While the deck does look to lack some draw, I would note that the author's intention is to create an Uberwock rather than to actually win games, which suggests to me that he won't be dropping the 'wock until most, if not all, the deck is drawn. There is, therefore, significant caution to be preferred when including untargeted card draw effects, as an Uberwock is not so Uber when it draws you six ticks of fatigue.
As for the Hagatha comment - the list posted does not include Hagatha the Witch, only Swampqueen Hagatha. Self-destructing Shudderwock Syndrome is not a risk, therefore.
(Leaving comment because I can't seem to find a PM function on the site)
I'll get back to you with a reply later this week - I posted my previous comment via my work machine which really, REALLY dislikes the scripts used for commenting on here! My PC is currently busted, but my new one arrives Thursday or Friday so will be able to give a more considered response then.
Without meaning to be overly critical, I'm a little confused as to the selection of cards here - and the point of the article series. Are you looking to highlight interesting cards? Underrated cards?
The reason I'm unclear is the three cards in the article are very different in terms of position:
Imp Gang Boss - Simply a good value card which has fallen out of play due to circumstances (the fall of generic zoo vs more 'gimmicky' zoo builds), which has seen significant play in the past. Not an interesting card by any means, just an old one which was once great and is no longer.
Nexus-Champion Saraad - A value-generating card which has never been significantly played simply because it's horribly unreliable and awkward, and yet occasionally sees niche play. Not an especially interesting card in terms of mechanics, but a fun one to play with.
Dragon Consort - A much more interesting card, but one which has never been good due to being positioned in a rarely played archetype - but also because it's somewhat schizophrenic in what it's trying to do. It provides no permanent advantage, and is instead a tempo play - but is, itself, a tempo loss due to being basically vanilla statted and slow. Primarily interesting for what it COULD do with more support, but also because I don't believe any other example exists of a single-use benefit persisting across multiple turns.
Shadowfiend - Not particularly interesting, and in fact simply a bad card in general. It wasn't considered bad because of Thaurissan - it was considered bad because Thaurissan does what you WANT it to do. In other words, it discounts the cards you want discounted. Thaurissan rarely stuck on board, but that was fine because he didn't need to - you played him when you had the cards you wanted discounted, or simply because you had a big hand. By contrast, Shadowfiend can't be targeted at specific cards, and indeed, without draw support (or it somehow sticking - even less likely than Thaurissan) does absolutely nothing. It's a card you play to generate future tempo by reducing mana costs in future, but you can't do anything to ensure you can actually USE that tempo without knowing what it'll hit. Not interesting, not underrated, and can't be profitably built around - it's honestly just bad.
My confusion, therefore, is that all four cards seem to have different reasons for being brought up. Maybe the article's just about discussing randomly-chosen Wild cards (which is fine, don't get me wrong) but I can't help but feel the article could be improved with more focus. Apologies for being critical!
The concept amuses me, but I feel is undermined by the inclusion of Lifedrinker and Nightblade to tip the balance in your favour. In my opinion, replace with more targeted damage effects like, say, Mad(der) Bomb(er) - it's not Russian Roulette if you're aiming at your opponent half the time. And also change the tag to 'just for fun', since it's not like you're going to be trying to make a ladder climb with a random-targeting 'wock deck.
So... it's Maly Druid but lower damage output, can't hit through taunts and needs a Florist proc? :P
Incidentally, Crystal Power is really not good in Quest Druid (of any flavour). The two options are mutually incompatible, meaning AT BEST it's going to act like you didn't have your quest completed at all, and at worst it's going to be significantly worse than playing it without the quest completed. You're better off including Worthy Expedition to smooth out your curve and fish for the far more effective cards like Nourish, Surger or Loti.
I took some pleasure from this article in remembering old archetypes I'd forgotten. Tempo warrior was barely a thing, it was viable for maybe one expansion, but it was pretty fun while it lasted... And looking over the decklist took me back to those halcyon days when dropping a 3/5 on 3 was the most powerful turn 3 play in the game. It's still pretty damn good, I suppose, but only by Standard's standards (heh). Also had fun in the early days of Wild's release messing around with an endless swarm type of paladin, running Justicar, Murloc Knights, Recruit-buffing cards like Steward of Darkshire, plus some Mukla's.
Incidentally, rather than improving it, I would argue Anyfin was the card that killed Murloc Knight. Before it was a lynchpin of murloc Paladin; as soon as Anyfin was released, Paladin had access to an easy OTK by including only 2x Bluegill, 2x Warleader and 1x Murk-Eye. Adding any other murloc made Anyfin actively worse, so what little play the Knight had been seeing dried up.
Kinda confused why all the non-legendary decks are virtually highlander despite (obviously) not having access to highlander support. Reno & co are the only reason you would ever do that - otherwise you're just making your deck massively unreliable for no payoff. Given the decks are already severely restricted by rarity, making them less reliable is unwise.
I remember playing against that deck (though not against Longer) on the ladder in Jan 19 (I went for the top 100 for the Wild Open, came close but didn't quite make it). I was never a fan; always been sceptical of Windfury in Even Shaman lists vs even more bodies, and Whirliboy Zapman just feels too easy to remove with pretty much anything. Admittedly that view may be coloured by me playing so much Warlock at the time.
Personally, I feel like with the spot Mage is in right now metagame-wise, highlander Mage simply isn't in a good spot. Going highlander is inevitably going to reduce your consistency in doing what your deck is aiming to do, and if your goal is to beat quest decks like Druid and Shaman, you need to be consistent. Druid will always have major board control after turn 5-6, Shaman will always outvalue you in a Mage list if you go long. Note that when I say 'always', I don't mean literally - I mean that it's so often the case that you should be planning for it when building your deck.
In my opinion, if you're going to target those decks, you need to be moving away from highlander and moving towards a game plan which those decks can't deal with. Mountain giants plus conjurer's calling is a good way of doing so, since neither deck is overly good at dealing with large threats (although you'd have to be careful of MCT, which Shaman usually runs and a lot of Druids have been experimenting with lately). Both decks pack healing, so you're not going to win from pure face plan - you're going to need to get the board, and to do so in a way that they can't get back with a one-turn clear.
Past that, you're going to need reach to close the game. Sure, Zephrys can grab you a fireball - that's not going to be enough against either of these decks the majority of the time.
In my view, if you want to target these decks, you go for something closer to the Big Spell Mage that's been popping up occasionally - double Pyroblast maindecked, discounted with Naga Sand Witch to give you a 20 damage burst turn. That's your win condition. Then build backwards from there, basically building your deck to be half ways of generating tall boardstates (since wide ones are easily punished by both decks), and half defensive AoE. Giants/Calling, Phaoris, that kind of thing. Keep Alex, drop the dragon package (especially Brightwing!), and have a good hard think about Luna's Pocket Galaxy (there's a reason it was basically unplayed before it got buffed).
Separate to all of that, if you really insist on going highlander, I would at least swap a few cards out. Drop Ice Barrier for something that's going to have a more significant impact, like Counterspell (which is a fantastic anti-druid card, by the way, dropped on turn 4/5 to block a starfall turn). Drop Blast Wave (horribly inefficient) for a Frost Nova to make Doomsayer less of a dead draw in the midgame. Drop Brightwing (ugh) and Crowd Roaster (very vulnerable to all of the removal in both Shaman and Druid) to get some board presence from Power of Creation, plus Conjurer's Calling. Think about dropping Firetree Witchdoctor (due to dropping some dragons) for Khadgar to synergise with the aforementioned. Ysera is also pretty debatable given she won't come into play until the point when both Druid and Shaman will be overpowering you anyway.
I think RavenSunHS is correct below, but to really drill down to it, you can answer the question posed by the article pretty simply:
Because it doesn't need to be.
Keywords exist as a visual shorthand, and as a learning aide for new players. Blizzard is resistant to adding new keywords, and they should be resistant to it, because the more keywords there are the less either of those objectives is easily met. Enrage was removed as a keyword because there were so few enrage minions, yes - but more to the point, because a keyword that isn't covering a lot of cards isn't doing its job.
I think long-standing HS players will (I would guess) generally like to see this mechanic be given a keyword, be it Elusive or anything else. The reason, I would argue, is simply because it feels neat. It's a mechanic which has existed since the game's release, and which is seen on a card here or there throughout most expansions. To anyone who's played all that time, seen it come up again and again, it simply feels right to give it a shorthand.
But whether it feels right is a separate question to whether it is right. Making the effect a keyword simply wouldn't give any real benefit to the game - there aren't enough cards with the effect to justify it - and would just be a mental bandage for long-standing players. Not coincidentally, those long-standing players are also the ones who get the least real benefit from keywords.
So, in summary, I don't believe the mechanic should be given a keyword.
As a side note - if it were given a keyword, would Elusive be a good fit? Personally, I feel like there's better ones out there. Elusive simply doesn't feel like it's descriptive enough of the effect itself. Sure, the article cites Taunt as an example of a similarly unintuitive effect, but I feel like this is a little disingenuous - Taunt is what it is because it was implemented in Vanilla when Hearthstone placed a much greater focus on callbacks to WoW. Not only has the game moved on since then, but the development team has learned a lot of lessons in designing a smooth and easily picked-up card game. They know better now.
Was this deck intended to compete seriously, or is it more of a 'for fun, and might win some games' deck? In my view it's suboptimal from the conceptual level and up, but obviously if it's more for fun than tryhard then that's irrelevant.
My suggestions:
-1 Body Wrapper. Not really sure what it's doing there, as it's unlikely to give you anything useful.
-1 Antique Healbot. I get that it's there to try to stay alive, but there are better options for that - and the battlecry isn't adding anything to the 'wock, since Reno is already in there.
-1 Leatherclad Hogrider. You're already (hopefully) getting charge from the Spiked Hogrider, so this effect is redundant coverage - and it's also going to experience anti-synergy due to Unseen Saboteur's effect pulling a card from your opponent's hand.
-1 Flame Juggler. Just kind of underwhelming, in my opinion.
Replaced by three of the following:
+1 Witchwood Piper. You're light on card draw, but you need specific draw effects to avoid the 'wock overdrawing you. This one works nicely.
+1 Kalimos, Primal Lord. It'd take some manipulation, admittedly, saving either Sandstorm Elemental (overloading), Zephrys or Kalimos himself for the turn before the Shudderwock. Three of the four effects are beneficial if chosen randomly, however, and also fairly amusing. Sure, there's a failure rate built in, since if the 'wock's effect picks Earth Elementals and it happens before Dopplegangster then you'd miss the bounce... but it's worth it for the laughs, in my opinion.
+1 Nefarian. If nothing else, because you're including The Curator with no dragon for it to draw.
+1 Heroic Innkeeper. Depends on the timing that it activates, of course, but if it times itself correctly it'll pump you up.
+1 Doomcaller. Since you'll hopefully be bouncing the 'wock back to your hand, including Doomcaller will add a C'thun to your deck that you can draw and play on the following turn. Then your bounced 'wock has TWO C'thuns in it - and both are at 8 damage instead of 6. And you can repeat it!
+1 Siamat. Most of the time, not very good. But is it worth including it for the one time in a hundred that you nail the Charge off Spiked Hogrider and roll it into Windfury from Siamat?
+1 Seaforium Bomber. Assuming you're waiting until late before you play the Shudderwock anyway, this is probably just strictly better than Lifedrinker - you don't need the heal if you're playing Reno, after all.
- You could also include the Jade package, if you decided to give up on bouncing the Wock.
Also, +1 Deathwing. Is actually terrible, but on the other hand, SWAG.
While the deck does look to lack some draw, I would note that the author's intention is to create an Uberwock rather than to actually win games, which suggests to me that he won't be dropping the 'wock until most, if not all, the deck is drawn. There is, therefore, significant caution to be preferred when including untargeted card draw effects, as an Uberwock is not so Uber when it draws you six ticks of fatigue.
As for the Hagatha comment - the list posted does not include Hagatha the Witch, only Swampqueen Hagatha. Self-destructing Shudderwock Syndrome is not a risk, therefore.
(Leaving comment because I can't seem to find a PM function on the site)
I'll get back to you with a reply later this week - I posted my previous comment via my work machine which really, REALLY dislikes the scripts used for commenting on here! My PC is currently busted, but my new one arrives Thursday or Friday so will be able to give a more considered response then.
Without meaning to be overly critical, I'm a little confused as to the selection of cards here - and the point of the article series. Are you looking to highlight interesting cards? Underrated cards?
The reason I'm unclear is the three cards in the article are very different in terms of position:
Imp Gang Boss - Simply a good value card which has fallen out of play due to circumstances (the fall of generic zoo vs more 'gimmicky' zoo builds), which has seen significant play in the past. Not an interesting card by any means, just an old one which was once great and is no longer.
Nexus-Champion Saraad - A value-generating card which has never been significantly played simply because it's horribly unreliable and awkward, and yet occasionally sees niche play. Not an especially interesting card in terms of mechanics, but a fun one to play with.
Dragon Consort - A much more interesting card, but one which has never been good due to being positioned in a rarely played archetype - but also because it's somewhat schizophrenic in what it's trying to do. It provides no permanent advantage, and is instead a tempo play - but is, itself, a tempo loss due to being basically vanilla statted and slow. Primarily interesting for what it COULD do with more support, but also because I don't believe any other example exists of a single-use benefit persisting across multiple turns.
Shadowfiend - Not particularly interesting, and in fact simply a bad card in general. It wasn't considered bad because of Thaurissan - it was considered bad because Thaurissan does what you WANT it to do. In other words, it discounts the cards you want discounted. Thaurissan rarely stuck on board, but that was fine because he didn't need to - you played him when you had the cards you wanted discounted, or simply because you had a big hand. By contrast, Shadowfiend can't be targeted at specific cards, and indeed, without draw support (or it somehow sticking - even less likely than Thaurissan) does absolutely nothing. It's a card you play to generate future tempo by reducing mana costs in future, but you can't do anything to ensure you can actually USE that tempo without knowing what it'll hit. Not interesting, not underrated, and can't be profitably built around - it's honestly just bad.
My confusion, therefore, is that all four cards seem to have different reasons for being brought up. Maybe the article's just about discussing randomly-chosen Wild cards (which is fine, don't get me wrong) but I can't help but feel the article could be improved with more focus. Apologies for being critical!